Sonos Celebrates Father’s Day

For Father’s Day, we hung out with two of our favorite music dads. They shared stories about the role music has played in their lives, and how they’re passing that special connection on to their children.

Nic Adler, son of accomplished producer and LA club owner Lou Adler, grew up listening to demo tapes in his dad’s car and hanging out at studio sessions. Now that Nic has a six month old son of his own – Cash – the two are exploring entire worlds of new music for the first time.

“As an adult mostly when I listen to music I want to feel something. I want to remember something. But when you have a new baby it’s almost like all that is wiped away and you want to explore everyday – different countries and different styles. So since Cash has been born I’ve been on this world music journey. It’s kind of awesome.”

Growing up listening to Al Green, Bob Marley, The Clash, Bill Withers, Adler remembers – like most of us do – the same few favorite records on heavy rotation. But now Adler and son Cash are exploring the world. “I found this app called Calm Radio. There’s a world music section with Native American, Tibetan, Chinese, multiple music genres from Latin America. I wondered, how would this affect my son if I started exposing him to all these different sounds and the different timing that comes from all the different kinds of music? So every morning let’s go explore a totally different style of music. And that’s definitely something I didn’t experience growing up.”

“I have the chance to expose my son to so many different styles because I have the access. I have the ability through Sonos to every day kind of sit down with him, put his toys out, and say ‘Where are we going today?'”

Nick Hexum, lead singer and guitarist of the band 311, invited us to his Topanga Canyon home to talk about his life of music and its role in his family’s life.

“Music is really the center of our family. It’s what we do for bonding and it makes the memories just so much more special. We often take a hot tub after dinner and there’s usually music on. When the perfect reggae song comes on and the girls are splashing around and the sun is just right, I’ll often remember, this is the time when the kids are young and life is just so full of possibilities.”

Hexum has not only made music an integral part of his life, but he’s sharing the joy of making memories with music with his girls. “We’ll often say, ‘After we clean up, we can have a dance party.’ My girls have asked me to play Call Me Maybe more times than I care to count but I’ll mix in some Bob Marley and some old soul. As long as it’s uptempo they don’t mind.”

Watch the Nic Adler and Nick Hexum films and share your own stories in the comments.

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Music lovers are the soul of Sonos, and we believe to the core that there has never been a better time to be into music. The Sonos Blog is a place for us to share stories about music and how we can enjoy it to the fullest.